For this week I picked a theme and searched for photos regarding “Friendship”.
Sometimes I wonder if wedding photography is so competitive that practitioners are always trying to get any edge they can so that they are always willing to buy new books on wedding photography. Or maybe it’s that the field looks so lucrative to outsiders that they are willing to buy wedding photography books to try and figure out how to get a piece of the pie. Or maybe it’s that so much is on the line that wedding photographers will grasp at any straw to avoid an error. There must be some explanation of why there are so many books published on the subject. Here’s another entry in the race. – Conrad J. Obregon
Step-by-Step Wedding Photography
by Damon Tucci
After a brief introduction that deals with things like the initial meeting with the clients and advice like packing your bag yourself, the author follows the event in a time-ordered sequence from preparation of the bride until the end of the reception. Because he emphasizes the pressures of time to really capture the big day, he provides seven time-saving strategies. There are too-brief discussions of posing, lighting, file formats, lenses and post-production and then a message to find your passion and style.
The author is a great believer in available light photography, made easier by the newest low-noise, high ISO digital cameras. He gives us very little guidance on the use of artificial light. There is no mention of softboxes, or bounce light, or Gary Fong, all so beloved to wedding photographers.
The pictures in the book seem rather standard . However, the information provided for each picture reveals his preference for wide-angle lenses. He also appears to love a 10.5mm fisheye. It seemed that more than one picture like that per wedding album might be overkill, but I suppose when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Sprinkled throughout the book are lighting diagrams that show the subject, or subjects, in relation to the camera and a reflector, but rarely show the direction of the main light.
This is a fine book if you are interested in a quick look at how one wedding photographer handles his work, and picking up a few tips. But in a crowded field like this, a book really has to be good to stand out above the crowd. Tucci would provide a nice supplement, particularly if you want to follow the available light route. But then considering how much is on the line in photographing a wedding, maybe one should read as many books as possible before undertaking the task.
The Photoshop function that I tend to use more and more often is Highlight / Shadow Adjustment.
You can find the “Highlight / Shadow” effect in the Image -> Adjustments menu.
This function is divided in two sections.
One section is dedicated to Highlight – here you reveal details on the sky (for example), darken the overexposed areas.
Another section is dedicated to Shadows – here you reveal the details from the shadow, darker areas.
Depending on the type of photograph, you can have different levels for each adjustment.
Be careful that by pushing these effects over the 50% limit, the picture will loose quality: noise and artifacts will appear.
Here you have some examples:
Ex1:
Ex2:
Ex3:
I usually bring the Radius near to the 50% because otherwise I will get unpleasantly hallows at the edges of the objects in my picture. It sort of looks like a HDR image.
Color Correction and Middtone Contrast are helpful for “last minute” adjustments. It’s not necessary – these can be done later from Brightness / Contrast and Hue / Saturation options from the same Image -> Adjustments menu.
Today I came across Harold Lloyd. It is a frosty late autumn day and he’s photography suddenly makes me shiver. No, I’m not talking about that Harold Lloyd (1893-1971), the American movie actor who turned to nude photography. I’m talking about Harold from Flikr, the “bokehddict“.
This photo is called “My name is Harold and I am a bokehddict”
Flower photography is for most people something too simple, too usual and except for the fact that it looks good on postcards, or inside books and calenders, it represents nothing creative to the photography community. But Harold’s work is different. He’s pictures of flower and trees are a masterpiece of color and shapes that give you strong emotions behind the usual.
I totally agree with Isabell’s Lafrance oppinion about Harold: he is a defined a master at creating magical bokehs. Isabelle: “He can take you to dark, lonely places or to enchanted dreamy heavens with every upload. He is a faithful, funny contact. But don’t be misled by his bokehs, as he once said, he is not only flowers and bokeh!”
Take the time to visit his photo stream on flikr. I’m sure you will be amazed at every shot!
The aperture seams to me to be the secret of his photography, so I looked over to see that photo gear does Harold use. Here’s he’s statement: “40D. 50mmf/1.4. That’s about it, really. Very rare that there’s something else on the front of the camera. Possibly a toilet roll here and there, but that’s another story.”
I’ve been a bokehddict for some time now. I started off just doing the odd one here and there. Nothing dangerous, I thought. I can cope with this. I could stop anytime. I had the right kind of lens, that’s all – but when I look back now, I can see that everything was just right to encourage it, to feed the habit.And then it all started to get more frequent. It might be every other day. Then every day. Then most shots. It was just bokeh, bokeh, bokeh.
Then I fell in with some others. They were addicts too. And it was all good, you know? There wasn’t any problem. We would all bokeh together. There was a site for it! We had groups where we’d bokeh. Lots of groups. Special days for special kinds of bokeh. But we thought there was nothing wrong with it! We’d celebrate the really good stuff. Breath it in and inhale it, bokeh after bokeh after bokeh after bokeh! Such a rush when those sparkles just fell into place, when that hazy background smoothly showed just what I wanted.
And now? Now I can’t stop. I need that bokeh fix. I have to make those spots show me their worth. I plead with them to give me what I want. I’m dreaming in little dots of light.
My name is harold. I need help.
Don’t you even dare to stop Harold!
Overall winner:
Steve Winter (United States of America)
Snowstorm leopard
‘After 10 months and a winter with little snow in Ladakh’s Hemis High Altitude National Park, India, I was running out of hope of getting the picture I wanted. But one freezing morning I checked my remote-controlled camera and found a snow leopard had triggered it the night before, in the frame I’d dreamed of – in its true element.’ Snow leopards are adapted to life in the mountains of central Asia. They have long, waterproof outer fur, dense woolly under-fur and large nasal cavities that warm the air as they breathe it in. This allows them to survive temperatures as low as -40°C. But the leopards can also tolerate the heat of the Gobi Desert, where temperatures can reach 40°C.
Canon EOS Rebel XT + 10-22mm lens at 16mm; 1/200 sec at f16; ISO 100; waterproof camera box + Plexiglass tubes for flashes; Trailmaster 1550-PS remote trigger.
This is the photographer whose picture has been voted as being the most striking and memorable of all the competition’s entries. The award-winner receives a big cash prize and the coveted title Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
The rest of the winners of each category, can be viewed here.
The winning photographs will be displayed in an exhibition at the Natural History Museum until 26 April 2009. The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition can also be seen at venues around the UK and internationally. The stunning images from both the 2007 and 2008 exhibitions are now touring worldwide to a venue near you. Use this website to find out where.
Have you got what it takes to become an award winner in 2009? The competition judges will be looking for originality and images that are creative, fresh and surprising. Details of the 2009 competition and information on how to enter will be sent to you in January. In the meantime, if you have any questions please email wildphoto@nhm.ac.uk
How to Organize
There are many articles on the web that talk about how to organize your photos. Now I want to tell step by step about my way of doing this, a way that never failed me when I was looking for something inside a huge archive of 100GB.
1. The first root directories I have are the name of the cameras used to take the pictures:
Canon
Nikon
Whatever else comes to me in hand
Not ones I’ve been asked what camera did I used – how could I know that if all my files were in the same folder?
2. Second then, there are directories that look like this: year_month_day_place. Most of the time, the place is more important, but I like to keep tracking my progress and compare older photos to new ones. Sometimes I come back to the same place and have different folders of the same place.
3. These directories are split into 3 other directories: original, photoshoped, web
4. The files in the photoshoped directory are photoshoped at full size and can be printed, while the files in web directory, have approximative 900 pixels wide and 190kb – the strongest requirements for one of the forums where I put them. Also, these files are watermarked.
5. A totally different category is a directory called stock. Here I put my pictures that I shoot specially for stock websites.
6. As for the program I use… well, I like picasa because it’s fast, but, other softwares have other advantages. I often need to see the exif data of image: it’s not just a requirement in many contests, but also helps to see the effects of certain camera settings.
NOTE: If a directory contains too many files, It will load the thumbs very slow. I keep about a maximum 2BG pictures in one folder
How to Back-up
As for the back-up, I make two back-ups:
ONE: on dvd-s
TWO: on an external hard drive (currently 500GB)
October Selection
Environmental photography
The title is simple, but the article is complex and reached deep into my heart. The images used as examples left me with a strong taste about the world we live in. It’s always great to read articles from Magnum Photo.
Pregnancy Photography Tips
This is another subject that will never fail to reach the human hearts. Yet, in this article I saw some photographs that are totally unique, such as a painted pregnant woman. Also, there is video at the very beginning of the article.
Smoke Photography and Smoke Art
This article is probably the HIT of the month. Smashing Magazine always comes will cool articles debating actual themes. So it is the case now too. The examples are unique, professional and very creative. Yet, I do not understand what water pictures have to do with smoke.
Triggering a Camera’s Flash with Sound and Light
This a very complex article for geeks. This article focuses on making the sensors used to trigger a camera’s flash using a microphone or a cheap laser pointer. You have the necessary tools, materials, and a piece of software code.
Other must-read articles:
Motherhood and photography
Professional Photographers Must Adapt or Die
55 – Using Photoshop Actions – Photography podcast
The ultimate guide to HDR photography
Digital Photography Tutorial – Image Noise And Noise Reduction
Black Silicon Discovery Could Change Digital Photography, Night Vision Forever
Aperture Spotlight: Women in Photography
Creative Challenge: Capturing the Sun
Optimizing Low-Light Photography
Photography For Beginners – Five Tips For Better Waterfall Photos
Thoughts on Travel Photography
Digital Photography: How Many Megapixels Do You Need?
About Microstock Photography, A Growing Industry
5 Items to Set Off Your Obsession with Digital Photography
How To: Photograph Your Home
Gig Photography Tips
Concept Shooting in Photography
During the Photo-Tour I encountered nice places and scenes that I wanted to photograph but could not get out of the car because the road and traffic did not allowed me to stop the car. Also, sometimes, pictures taken from a car can be more creative, more interesting than a normal snapshot of the landscape. Here is what I mean:
1. TIP: By shooting from inside the car, frame your picture with the car elements: mirror, or, the lateral window. However, don’t focus on these element: they represent just the frame, not the point of interest. The point of interest is the environment outside the car.
2. TIP: The picture from inside the car is interesting when motion blur is present. Not hard to do that: there are two key factors that you should know when hunting for the right moment to get the most spectacular blur:
FIRST: near objects get more of the motion blur
SECOND: the greater the speed, the stronger the motion blur
3. TIP: Considering the speed of the car, and the fact that inside the car there is less light than outside, you should set your camera on shutter speed priority – fast shutter speed. The kind of motion blur you want is not the one caused by your camera shake (which is an up-down movement), but the one caused by the moving car (which is horizontal).
4. TIP: Some animals tend to approach the car. Prepare something to eat and ask someone inside the car to hand it over the window, then catch with your camera the moment when the animal sticks the head into the car. Funny, isn’t it?
5. TIP: If the car is stopped but there is no need to get off in order to shoot something you like, then maybe you should not think about framing the picture with car elements: just open the window and take a normal shot. Without the motion-blur or middle of the road situations, it does not make much sens to fill the picture with unnecessary elements. However, the next pictures are some exceptions.
6. TIP: Watch out for the reflection and dust! The reflection of your body or other elements in the care window, and the dust on the window, can be avoided if you just open the window. Depending on the Sun’s position, you may not get any reflections thou the glass. Here’s an example of the situation when you can not open the front window of the car, so the is some dust…
Also, there are some situations when the reflection in the car’s lateral mirror can be interesting.
There so many great pictures these days in my mailbox, that it was veeerryyy hard to decide which ones to post.
You may be wondering where have I been this month since I disappeared for over 20 days. In the first 2 weeks I have been busy making big changes in my life, but then, I toked a 10 days photo tour in the center and south part of my country, Romania. I was lucky to have every single day with fog in the morning and warm sun after that, no rain at all.
The perfect weather and the perfect season for great photography.
The result were 10 GB of pictures which I am preparing to show you. The main theme – the dominating subject – was “ruins, castles and fortresses”. Second, there were museums and churches.
Also, there are some new tutorials on the way, so keep in touch!
Here’s a map of the route (blue) I’ve been on, and a list of the places I photographed.
Targoviste,
Curtea de Arges,
Cozia,
Calimanesti-Caciulata,
Transfagasan,
Vidraru,
Balea,
Valea Oltului,
Tarnaveni,
Ocna Sibiului,
Sibiu,
Avrig,
Bazna,
Deva,
Hunedoara,
Sarmisegetuza Ulpia traiana,
Sarmisegetuza Regia,
CosteÅŸti – Cetăţuie,
Fagaras,
Rasnov,
Bucuresti
Since the amount of great pictures is high, I opened a photo gallery and a group on flickr. Old photos and new ones can be watched here. Weekly PhotoCritique will continue with the help of photoaxe group: post your picture in the club and all members will comment. After a week or so, photos will be selected and a resume will be posted on www.photoaxe.com.